Analysis: A new art installation seeks to convey the cognitive impairments and ups and downs of bipolar disorder
I asked DALL·E 2 an AI system that creates images from a given description, to generate "a photograph of a person with a mental illness". Invariably, I was presented with pictures of people holding their hands in front of their faces, perhaps to hide from others' gazes or to comfort themselves in their evident distress. What is clear is that these images depict a negative emotional state, and this reflects a stereotypical social representation of the experience of mental illness.
Negative emotions are undoubtedly one aspect of many mental illnesses, but mental illness is more than emotions and it is worth developing an awareness of how it affects our thinking processes. To completely separate thoughts from feelings is overly simplistic to the point of inaccuracy, but let's draw a distinction between affective cognition (e.g., feeling sad when depressed) and non-affective cognition (e.g., forgetfulness related to non-emotional events, for instance where you left your keys) to emphasise how mental illness goes beyond emotions and can affect 'thinking’ as well as ‘feeling’.
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness particularly associated with emotional highs and lows. It is characterized by shifts in moods between periods of mania and depression. Symptoms of manic episodes can include decreased need for sleep, increased energy, pressurized speech and grandiose thoughts; whereas in depressive episodes symptoms can include reduced energy, negative thoughts, and loss of interest in social activities.
In any year, an estimated 0.7% of the Irish population experience bipolar disorder and it affects the health and wellbeing of millions of people across the globe. The enormous individual, societal and economic impact of mental illnesses is seen by the WHO making the prevention and treatment of these conditions one of its Sustainable Development Goals. The WHO explicitly seeks to promote mental health and wellbeing, and there is good evidence showing that increasing public knowledge of mental health disorders reduces stigma towards them.
In any year, an estimated 0.7% of the Irish population experience bipolar disorder and it affects the health and wellbeing of millions of people across the globe
So, how might we explain, educate and empathically communicate what it is like to live with bipolar disorder? How can we share a more complete account that goes beyond the impersonal statistics or stereotypical ‘head in hands’ emotional images, but instead also captures the lesser-attended-to cognitive impairments?
Conor Maloney is an audio-visual artist with bipolar disorder. Working with musician John Conneely and the Scientific Arts Lab at the University of Galway, he created an art installation called Oscillation that aimed to explore the relationship between manic episodes and cognitive dysfunction, and to convey a sense of his own experience of the ups and downs of bipolar disorder.
In this work, Maloney uses his art to communicate how his thinking changes during an episode, focusing particularly on how mania affects his memory. He collaborated with cognitive neuroscientists Dr David Plans and Dr Toby Wise and entwined the scientific study of cognitive impairments in bipolar disorder with his own experience of them during an episode.
The Oscillation audiovisual new media sound sculpture representing the impact of bipolar mania on the brain
Oscillation comprises a modified cassette player running a tape loop over sandpaper. The cassette player is embedded in a simulacrum of a human head encased in broken glass and resin, with internal lighting to represent synaptic brain activity. The tape loop is playing vocal samples recorded by Maloney which describe his symptoms with bipolar disorder, and the audio quality of the tape is slowly being destroyed as it runs continuously over the sandpaper. The motor speed of the cassette player is controlled by a bipolar low-frequency oscillator (LFO), a repeating electronic signal that oscillates from a positive to negative voltage range, much like the manic/depressive mood cycle seen in bipolar disorder.
As the LFO peaks into a positive range representing mania, the tape speeds up. The increased tape speed allows the listener to hear the pressurised speech and rapid thoughts that Maloney experiences and that are a characteristic symptom of bipolar disorder. It also causes the tape to degrade more quickly as it runs faster and more frequently over the sandpaper, thereby reducing the quality of the information stored on the tape’s ‘memory’. Maloney intends this element of destruction and loss to represent the cognitive impairments in memory associated with manic episodes in bipolar disorder.
To further demonstrate the non-emotional cognitive impairments associated with bipolar disorder, Maloney incorporated an interactive component showing how social factors can influence his mood and related thinking processes. He included a theremin, a type of antenna-based electronic musical instrument controlled by gestures alone, that allowed the public to directly influence the speed of the tape playing his recorded thoughts. Such social interactions, like those experienced in everyday life, inserted randomness and unpredictable behaviour into the audio-visual display – a metaphor for how social interactions evoke shifts in Maloney’s mood cycles that he cannot easily foresee.
The creative technology behind Oscillation provides an immersive experience for the public, approximately 99% of whom will never have such a cognitive state. Through his creative use of technology, Maloney presents us with a multi-sensory direct experience of how his memory is impaired as his manic episodes progress. Oscillation offers an immediate experience of atypical cognition directly through the senses of those who interact with it, and a novel way to share information about the non-emotional cognitive effects of mental illness. It's a method that is experiential rather than referential.
Maloney has dedicated Oscillation to his mother, the late artist Gretta Nolan-Maloney. In his work, we are not asked to learn a fact about memory impairments in bipolar disorder. We are not told about the experience, but we are invited to immerse ourselves in it with him and experience how mental illness affects thinking and not only feelings.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
